“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a twenty year holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Fiserv Inc (NYSE: FI) back in 2005. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 10/10/2005 |
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| End date: | 10/09/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $44.84 | ||||
| End price/share: | $125.96 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 223.02 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 223.02 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 180.91% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 5.30% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $28,106.92 | ||||
As shown above, the twenty year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 5.30%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $28,106.92 today (as of 10/09/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 180.91% (something to think about: how might FI shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
Another great investment quote to think about:
“You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don’t realize it at the time.” — Shelby Davis
